The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.
in for their sake).  Creatures sometimes acquire and sometimes lose worldly object.  No man in this world can be grieved by all the events that fall upon him.  Dead or lost, he who grieves for what is past, only gets sorrow for sorrow.  Instead of one sorrow, he gets two.[1763] Those men who, beholding the course of life and death in the world with the aid of their intelligence, do not shed tears, are said to behold properly.  Such persons have never to shed tears, (at anything that may happen).  When any such calamity comes, productive of either physical or mental grief, as is incapable of being warded off by even one’s best efforts, one should cease to reflect on it with sorrow.  This is the medicine for sorrow, viz., not to think of it.  By thinking of it, one can never dispel it; on the other hand, by thinking upon sorrow, one only enhances it.  Mental griefs should be killed by wisdom; while physical grief should be dispelled by medicines.  This is the power of knowledge.  One should not, in such matters, behave like men of little understandings.  Youth, beauty, life, stored wealth, health, association with those that are loved,—­these all are exceedingly transitory.  One possessed of wisdom should never covet them.  One should not lament individually for a sorrowful occurrence that concerns an entire community.  Instead of indulgence in it when grief comes, one should seek to avert it and apply a remedy as soon as one sees the opportunity for doing it.  There is no doubt that in this life the measure of misery is much greater than that of happiness.  There is no doubt in this that all men show attachment for objects of the senses and that death is regarded as disagreeable.  That man who casts off both joy and sorrow, is said to attain to Brahma.  When such a man departs from this world, men of wisdom never indulge in any sorrow on his account.  In spending wealth there is pain.  In protecting it there is pain.  In acquiring it there is pain.  Hence, when one’s wealth meets with destruction, one should not indulge in any sorrow for it.  Men of little understanding, attaining to different grades of wealth, fail to win contentment and at last perish in misery.  Men of wisdom, however, are always contented.  All combinations are destined to end in dissolution.  All things that are high are destined to fall down and become low.  Union is sure to end in disunion anti life is certain to end in death.  Thirst is unquenchable.  Contentment is the highest happiness.  Hence, persons of wisdom regard contentment to be the most precious wealth.  One’s allotted period of life is running continually.  It stops not in its course for even a single moment.  When one’s body itself is not durable, what other thing is there (in this world) that one should reckon as durable?  Those persons who, reflecting on the nature of all creatures and concluding that it is beyond the grasp of the mind, turn their attention to the highest path, and, setting out, achieve a fair
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The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.